Sharing and delivery
Where Each Platform Covers Your Video
Every vertical feed puts buttons, captions and usernames on top of your picture. Knowing roughly where they sit stops you composing a shot that the interface eats.
2 min read · Published 11 September 2026
A vertical video is never seen the way you exported it. The app draws its own interface over the top: a username and caption along the bottom, a column of buttons down one side, and sometimes a progress bar and a title above.
None of that is in your file, so an edit that looks perfectly framed in the editor can have its subtitle sitting underneath a share button in the feed.
Roughly where the furniture sits
Exact positions change with app versions, screen sizes and whether the viewer is in a comment thread, so precise pixel numbers age badly. These are the areas to treat as occupied.
| Area | What is usually there | Advice |
|---|---|---|
| Bottom sixth | Username, caption, music credit | Keep text and faces out of it |
| Right hand edge | Like, comment, share, profile | Keep the subject off that side |
| Top strip | Back arrow, title, progress | Avoid placing anything critical here |
| Centre | Nothing | Put the subject and any text here |
Treat these as approximations and check on a real phone before publishing a series. An app update can move a button, and the only reliable test is looking at your own video in the app it is going to.
A safe area that works everywhere
Rather than memorising each platform, compose for the strictest case. Keep everything that matters inside the middle of the frame, with a generous margin at the bottom and along the right hand side.
- Burned in captions: raise them well clear of the bottom edge rather than sitting them at the base
- Faces: centre them, and resist the urge to place a subject on the right third
- On screen text: keep it in the middle band, not the top or bottom strips
- Logos: a corner is the traditional place and the worst one here; inset it
Why cropping from landscape makes this worse
Cutting a 16:9 video into a 9:16 frame throws away most of the width, and whatever remains has to survive the interface on top. A shot composed for landscape usually has its subject somewhere in the middle third horizontally, which survives, and its captions at the bottom, which do not.
If you know a landscape edit will be cut vertically later, compose for both: subject centred, and nothing important in the lowest sixth of the frame. That one habit removes most of the work from the crop.
The aspect ratio calculator on this site works out the crop dimensions between any two shapes, which is the part people get wrong by a few pixels and then notice as a thin black line down one edge.
Common questions
What is the safe area for a vertical video?
Keep everything important in the middle of the frame, clear of the bottom sixth where the caption and username sit, and clear of the right hand edge where the action buttons are. Composing for that leaves a video that works on every vertical feed.
Where should captions go in a Short or Reel?
Raised well above the bottom edge rather than resting on it. The lowest part of the frame is where the app puts its own text, and a subtitle placed there is either covered or competing with it.
Do the interface positions change?
Yes, with app versions and screen sizes, which is why exact pixel figures go out of date quickly. Treat the bottom strip and the right hand edge as occupied, and check a real phone before committing to a template you will reuse.
How do I crop 16:9 to 9:16 without losing the subject?
Compose the original with the subject near the centre and nothing essential in the lowest sixth. Then the vertical crop is a straight cut of the sides. Repositioning shot by shot is the alternative and takes far longer.